A few years ago I read some of the work of Eckhart Tolle. I was in a different place at that stage of my journey and , at that time, I had trouble accepting the practicality of this idea which he expressed:-
“Accept-then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it,not against it. Make it your friend and ally,not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”
To be clear, the idea sounded great if you could really feel like that when life throws you a curveball. But was it really practical to respond in this way ? My own solution was to definitely not act as if I had chosen the moment but instead grit my teeth and fight it with all I had. No prizes for guessing how that worked out . Sometimes the pure grit approach got the job done after a fashion but with hindsight there was often a more skilful approach which would have led to a better outcome in terms of quality of decisions and broader state of mind.
Some years later I came across the same concept expressed by Tolle but recast in a single word: ‘Good’. This time the idea was expressed by Jocko Willink, a former commander of a US Navy SEAL team. He would say ‘Good’ whenever a challenging situation occurred:
Now, while it may be tempting (but wrong) to dismiss Tolle as an impractical idealist , Jocko Willink was in a position where he had to be eminently practical:lives depended on it. This gave me pause for thought:this was a real concept with applicability in the most demanding circumstances.
Still, this seems easier said than done. Most would accept at a logical level that a calm controlled response to any challenging moment is better than clearly suboptimal emotional responses .But knowing that and choosing the right response do not always go hand in hand. Is that mindset only available to a fortunate few?
This is where hypnotherapy can help. In these moments we can be hijacked by our subconscious programs which can block the state of calm acceptance and reasoned response we want, replacing it with instant emotion fuelled decisions based on fear , anxiety , indignation and so on. These responses, which differ from person to person are based on the way in which individual experiences have ‘trained’ that person’s mind to respond as a default. But modern neuroscience brought the concept of neuroplasticity: our brains and thus our responses can change: we are not fated to always respond emotionally.
Hypnotherapy is specifically directed at the subconscious mind and can be targeted at the adverse emotional patterns described, allowing their replacement with the accepting, calm and confident thought process Tolle and Willink describe.Through hypnotherapy I experienced this precise transformation and have seen the same transformation in clients who are able to respond with calm, logical equanimity to both specific and general challenges from dealing with a bad beat at the poker table, an adverse event for an entrepreneur or difficulties in personal and professional relationships.
‘Good’ or embracing the moment as if we had chosen it-however you choose to express it- is a powerful foundational mindset which is accessible to all of us, if you harness the power of your subconscious mind through hypnotherapy.
